


Keen and Cold

by fairbreeze



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:40:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbreeze/pseuds/fairbreeze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The second time he hears her sing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keen and Cold

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the fic_promptly prompt: Final Fantasy VI, Setzer/Celes, her singing voice

The first time he hears her sing, he’s not even really paying attention.

She’s Maria to him then, a pretty little wisp of a girl that was nothing more substantial to him than air, something to amuse himself with, to while away the lonely hours until death. She was the operatic heroine who he promised he would sweep away in suitably epic fashion and be-jewel in a mansion in the sky. How could she help but be taken with him? He was handsome when he wanted to be, despite the scars, and he caught her with fancy and stories and flattery and she would have been lovely, a pretty little bird, happy and sparkling in her cage.

He might have even loved her, eventually.

What he got, instead, was more ice than girl, more warrior than woman. She was more beautiful than Maria, though they could have been sisters, but it wasn’t her face. Here was a bird that would destroy any cage she was put in, and any jailer besides. He hadn’t yet seen her fight, but she moved like a warrior, and when she slung her first spell, all shards and cold, he had to stop and gape at her. Terra made sense to him. Women, in his experience, were creatures of fire and emotion, and seeing her flare up and turn Esper was unsettlingly alien, but it didn’t disturb him half as much as watching Celes’ eyes when she killed.

They were always cold, empty.

Nothing, while they went after Kefka. Nothing when the world fell around them. Nothing when she found him again. Even as she pleaded with him, she didn’t believe that they would be able to do it, to make it back to the sky, to find their friends. There was nothing there. She was just going forward because she didn’t want to turn around. And in many ways, he understood. He covered it better, so well that sometimes even he believed his own lies, but in the end, weren’t they the same?

And then, one night, after everyone else was in bed, asleep, he wandered up on deck and heard her sing.

He’d always sort of wondered how she’d pulled it off, back at the Opera House. If she’d been a general her whole life, a swordswoman, a Magitek Knight, how could she have ever fooled anyone into thinking she was an opera star? Seeing her now, he knew. 

She was standing on the bow of the ship, looking out over the sea, wreathed in a beautiful golden light and he could see the faintest impression of arms around her, female and as insubstantial as the wind. It took him a moment to recognise what was happening as a strange form of casting, something he had only ever seen her do in the heat of battle. Here, it looked like she was using the energy to surround herself in that glow, singing softly to herself. He couldn’t hear the words, but he could hear the clear quality of her voice, and the sadness of the song. An elegy. She was singing an elegy. He couldn’t stand it. Not here, not now, not with the memory of Daryl hot around him like an engine. 

“Should have known you’d be able to do something like that,” he broke the mood, her thoughts, the song, as he crossed to her, and her annoyance and embarrassment at being interrupted made him feel only about half as bad as listening to her had. “Siren?”

“Siren,” she confirmed, her voice cold. Narshe winter had crept into her, as surely as Locke had, freezing even what was left of her heart. But what did he care? He wasn’t exactly in this to be a hero. He just wanted his skies. He just wanted freedom. He deliberately invaded her personal space, backed her the single step back to the rail, arm around her to keep her from even the illusion that she might fall, and leaned close. Her glare could kill a man, but he was already dead, like her.

“You could forget all about him, you know,” he breathed into the air between them, leaned in, knew she could feel the heat of him, “You really are beautiful. Beautiful and resourceful and powerful. We’d make a great team, you and I. Rally the survivors. Change the world. That’s what you want, isn’t it? I can give it to you.” Choose me. Let me learn how to melt the ice around you. Love me. He knew she’d pull away, maybe even freeze him on the deck, slap him. But he was a gambler, so much of the thrill was in the chase, the inevitable, eventual loss.

“Setzer...” He’d never heard his name said like that before. Celes sighed and slumped against him, unexpectedly enough that he almost staggered with her weight. Under his hands, he could feel the tension leave her body, hers tucked neatly against his chest. Her breath against his neck was warm (warm) and even through his astonishment that she would show such a weakness to anyone, much less him, he knew he could tilt her head up, right now, kiss her just so, and she would come undone, tumble into his bed without a second thought. She wanted so desperately to let it all go, to be swept away, to be a woman instead of a general, instead of a hero, to spend just a night pretending to be passionate and safe and loved. He knew what it was like, this moment, because he’d shown it to more women than he could name, trying to fill the empty places Daryl had left in his heart. It would work, he was as sure of it as if he’d loaded the dice.

It would be a disaster.

He curled her closer, pulled her into the warmth of his coat, arms wound further around her back and placed a kiss to her temple. 

“We’ll find him, Celes. I promise.” Eventually. Inevitably.

He’d do what he could.


End file.
